21 people signed up for Alpha at King’s Church Edinburgh this morning and it was their highest ever Sunday attendance (apart from Carol Services).
273 people came along, which was about 50 more than when I was last with them a couple of years ago.
Kings Church started from scratch 13 years ago with a handful of people, so they’ve done really well, led by Matthew & Anne Clifton–Brown.
They now own what used to be Viewforth Parish Church. When you enter the church building the built in welcome mat says: “Welcome to Free St. Peter’s.”
It’s great to see such a historic building now full of young people. And there were lots of students this morning sitting in the newly renovated balcony. The sightlines up there are not great because the upstairs seats were designed for watching a sermon from an elevated pulpit (now removed) so Kings have put in some high quality video screens upstairs so that everyone can see.
At the end of my talk, I was delighted to meet an old friend from our Reigate days, Pete Hughes, who was part of the small group which Julia and I led in the late 1990s. He is a ski instructor who I haven’t seen for 15 years, and it was great to have lunch with my excellent hosts Dan & Julie Hudson, and also Michael Hale, an evangelist friend, who is also part of Kings.